2009’s “Star Trek” reboot was an improbably fun shot in the arm for the ailing science fiction-adventure franchise, but as is the case with these modern tentpoles, the filmmakers behind this relaunched series couldn’t resist the impulse to get bigger, louder and much dumber in its sequel. There were some dumb aspects behind the first film too, don’t get me wrong. But it had the good sense to be fun; “Star Trek Into Darkness” just ladles on dourness and a plot stunning in its lack of logic and incoherence. The recast young crew of the Enterprise, featuring Chris Pine as Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock and Karl Urban as (a sadly underused) McCoy, are caught up in a larger conspiracy when a mysterious terrorist (Benedict Cumberbatch) attacks Starfleet. Who this terrorist is and what connection he has to the larger “Star Trek” mythos I’ll leave to you to discover, though I will say that “Star Trek Into Darkness” crosses that fine line between homage and cynical retread, borrowing heavily from the best of the previous “Trek” movies for what little emotional impact it reaches for. It’s again not the fault of a game cast — Simon Pegg as Scotty is a particular standout — but an increasingly strained screenplay that strands these castmembers in bombast and unmemorable setpieces just barely held together by its ludicrous story. (There are plot points you will be forced to accept that collapse under the barest amount of scrutiny.) By the time it culminates in its outrageously awful shrug of an ending, the promise of the 2009 reboot seems, all too appropriate, lost in space. $30.99 DVD, $40.99 Blu-ray.

“PEEPLES”

For a Tyler Perry-produced take on “Meet the Parents,” the new film “Peeples,” starring a very funny and appealing cast, could be worse. There are even a few laughs here and there. Maybe that’s thanks to the benefits of very low expectations, though I’m a fan of Craig Robinson (also seen in this summer’s excellent comedy “This is the End”) and Kerry Washington (TV’s “Scandal” and “Django Unchained”). Is that enough reason to check out “Peeples?” Well, there are worse ways to spend your time. Robinson plays Wade Walker, a hapless songwriter whose relationship with Grace Peeples (Washington) is going so well that he’s ready to propose marriage. But he hasn’t met her family, and one weekend, when she goes home for a family tradition, he surprises her by showing up at the Peeples estate in the Hamptons. And so begins a series of misunderstandings, as sparks immediately fly between Wade and Grace’s father, Judge Virgil Peeples (David Alan Grier), who takes an instant dislike to Wade and isn’t afraid to share his opinion. If it hadn’t been done before in “Meet the Parents,” maybe “Peeples” wouldn’t feel so predictable throughout, but though it’s warm enough, it contains virtually no surprises, and no major laughs to really recommend it. Still, there are a few decent jokes here and there, and time spent with folks like the cast of this movie is not time poorly spent. $19.98 DVD, $24.99 Blu-ray.

September 3

“NOW YOU SEE ME”

An unlikely hit from earlier this summer, “Now You See Me” didn’t come to theaters burdened by expectations or hype — just a solid cast and a likeable enough premise drew audiences, along with, I suppose, the promise of a twisty mystery. Well, “Now You See Me” does have a twisty mystery, but it’s a completely ridiculous one that requires more suspension of disbelief than many will be capable of providing. As the film also wastes its cast, stranding them with unfunny quips and contrived red-herring behaviors that beggar belief, and fundamentally betrays its own premise by half-heartedly introducing an element of mysticism into an allegedly grounded story, “Now You See Me” ends up being quite memorably terrible. Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher and Dave Franco star as four disparate illusionists brought together by a mysterious benefactor who bequeaths detailed instructions on constructing a new magic show. A year later, the four seemingly rob a Paris bank from Las Vegas. This alleged crime is investigated by a bumbling FBI agent (Mark Ruffalo) and his Interpol counterpart (Melanie Laurent), while a former magician (Morgan Freeman) now making money off debunking the work of others sees an opportunity in revealing the secrets of the four. As more shows are promised and more crimes are committed, the investigators seek a connection between the events while trying to stay ahead of the fiendishly clever magicians and their master plan. If you’re paying attention, you can guess who’s behind the whole thing pretty early; that is, if you care, as the film throws one absurd possibility after another at us with unexciting action scenes one after another and poor computer-generated effects subbing in for blatantly impossible illusions. Frankly, “Now You See Me” just doesn’t earn its hokum, making it an extremely frustrating movie indeed. $29.95 DVD, $39.99 Blu-ray.

“THE LORDS OF SALEM”

Rob Zombie returns to original horror filmmaking of his own devising after, by most accounts, an unsuccessful foray into rebooting the “Halloween” franchise. “The Lords of Salem” isn’t quite a triumphant return, but with Zombie seemingly drawing inspiration from directors like Roman Polanski, Ken Russell and Stanley Kubrick in this intermittently effective psychological horror story, there’s a lot to like about it before it collapses in its own excess in an unsuccessful psychedelic freak-out of an ending. Sheri Moon Zombie (the director’s wife and frequent star) plays our protagonist, a disc jockey and recovering addict in Salem, Mass., who receives a mysterious record from a band called The Lords. After she plays their industrial metal-style song, strange things start happening: her apartment complex seems to have a ghostly new resident and she begins to have horrifying visions of, among other things, a coven of witches from Salem’s past. This is a premise ripe for psychological horror, and “The Lords of Salem” hits these heights frequently, particularly in scenes with our protagonist’s three downstairs neighbors, sisters played by scream queens Judy Geeson, Patricia Quinn and Dee Wallace. But this being a Rob Zombie film, he can’t help but pile on the grotesque; it’s not enough to have a haunting, stunted demon at the top of stairs in an opera house, for example, when the demon can shrilly scream and wiggle strange tentacles from its body. Zombie’s tendencies toward the overwrought spectacularly manifest in a climax that seems almost entirely metaphorical, or at least too strange to provide a satisfying conclusion to what’s come before, yet there’s enough good stuff in “The Lords of Salem” that horror fans may enjoy what they see. $26.98 DVD, $30.99 Blu-ray.

“THE ICEMAN”

Michael Shannon is a terrific actor who deserves many opportunities to lead his own films, as people who have seen acclaimed films like “Take Shelter” or tiny indies like “The Missing Person” can attest. And he acquits himself nicely in “The Iceman,” the true story of feared and prolific mob hitman Richard Kuklinski, who came to notoriety by freezing the bodies of his victims to prevent investigators from determining the time of death. Shannon’s performance is all focused intensity, barely sublimated rage and a callous disregard for life despite being a family man with two beloved daughters. It’s unnerving and beautifully contradictory at times. But the film that contains this performance is largely unworthy of it, all mob clichés and overbearing score that indicate the film may have bitten off more than it could chew, particularly near the ending as Shannon hardly has room to breathe and things unravel quickly and unsatisfyingly. “The Iceman” starts with Kuklinski’s inauspicious beginnings as he is recruited due to his steely demeanor by crime boss Roy Demeo (Ray Liotta, doing his thing). Asked to prove his mettle, Kuklinski becomes a successful hitman, though a mishap soon kicks him back to square one and puts him on the outs with Demeo. Soon, Kuklinski heads into private business with a fellow assassin (Chris Evans), and the strain of his violent profession soon wears on his relationship with his wife (Winona Ryder) and daughters. The true story ends anticlimactically, and so too does this film; what began as well-drawn tension in the beginning unravels as the viewer realizes about halfway through that the film has already said all it intends to about its fascinating subject. Only Shannon’s magnetism keeps one invested, which is considerable, but not quite enough. $28.99 DVD, $29.99 Blu-ray.

“STORIES WE TELL”

Sarah Polley, an Oscar-nominated actress, writer and director, was born in 1979, the result of a pregnancy late in life, to parents Michael and Diane Polley of Toronto. Her mother died suddenly of cancer in her childhood, and she grew up with her father. Now, we all have our stories like that and we all have certain narratives and prisms through which we see our lives. Who our parents were, who our friends are, where we come from — these things define who we are in our everyday. Then, when one of us dies, it’s left to those who were closest to us to continue our narratives, piecing them together from possibly divergent memories and different perspectives. With her brilliant film, Polley does just that to paint a clear picture of her family, specifically her mother. Some of the stories and revelations here will astound you. Coming from fiction film and having refined her storytelling technique, part of the brilliance of “Stories We Tell” is the way things are revealed, piecemeal and point by point through a mixture of interviews and archival footage. Yet so many of the stories contradict one another that by its end “Stories We Tell” is equal parts memoir and treatise on the very nature of finding the truth, and in its last moments, the film examines its own reason for existing, and Sarah Polley’s motivations for making it. It elevates “Stories We Tell” beyond confessional portrait of a single family into a deconstruction of universal themes of what we remember about people and how we select what to share. It’s an extraordinary film and I recommend seeing it with as little foreknowledge of its turns as possible; we all tell stories to ourselves and others, but Sarah Polley is a born storyteller, and we’re fortunate to have the privilege that she shared this one with us in such a remarkable fashion.

About This Blog

September 10

“STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS”

2009’s “Star Trek” reboot was an improbably fun shot in the arm for the ailing science fiction-adventure franchise, but as is the case with these modern tentpoles, the filmmakers behind this relaunched series couldn’t resist the impulse to get bigger, louder and much dumber in its sequel. There were some dumb aspects behind the first film too, don’t get me wrong. But it had the good sense to be fun; “Star Trek Into Darkness” just ladles on dourness and a plot stunning in its lack of logic and incoherence. The recast young crew of the Enterprise, featuring Chris Pine as Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock and Karl Urban as (a sadly underused) McCoy, are caught up in a larger conspiracy when a mysterious terrorist (Benedict Cumberbatch) attacks Starfleet. Who this terrorist is and what connection he has to the larger “Star Trek” mythos I’ll leave to you to discover, though I will say that “Star Trek Into Darkness” crosses that fine line between homage and cynical retread, borrowing heavily from the best of the previous “Trek” movies for what little emotional impact it reaches for. It’s again not the fault of a game cast — Simon Pegg as Scotty is a particular standout — but an increasingly strained screenplay that strands these castmembers in bombast and unmemorable setpieces just barely held together by its ludicrous story. (There are plot points you will be forced to accept that collapse under the barest amount of scrutiny.) By the time it culminates in its outrageously awful shrug of an ending, the promise of the 2009 reboot seems, all too appropriate, lost in space. $30.99 DVD, $40.99 Blu-ray.

“PEEPLES”

For a Tyler Perry-produced take on “Meet the Parents,” the new film “Peeples,” starring a very funny and appealing cast, could be worse. There are even a few laughs here and there. Maybe that’s thanks to the benefits of very low expectations, though I’m a fan of Craig Robinson (also seen in this summer’s excellent comedy “This is the End”) and Kerry Washington (TV’s “Scandal” and “Django Unchained”). Is that enough reason to check out “Peeples?” Well, there are worse ways to spend your time. Robinson plays Wade Walker, a hapless songwriter whose relationship with Grace Peeples (Washington) is going so well that he’s ready to propose marriage. But he hasn’t met her family, and one weekend, when she goes home for a family tradition, he surprises her by showing up at the Peeples estate in the Hamptons. And so begins a series of misunderstandings, as sparks immediately fly between Wade and Grace’s father, Judge Virgil Peeples (David Alan Grier), who takes an instant dislike to Wade and isn’t afraid to share his opinion. If it hadn’t been done before in “Meet the Parents,” maybe “Peeples” wouldn’t feel so predictable throughout, but though it’s warm enough, it contains virtually no surprises, and no major laughs to really recommend it. Still, there are a few decent jokes here and there, and time spent with folks like the cast of this movie is not time poorly spent. $19.98 DVD, $24.99 Blu-ray.

September 3

“NOW YOU SEE ME”

An unlikely hit from earlier this summer, “Now You See Me” didn’t come to theaters burdened by expectations or hype — just a solid cast and a likeable enough premise drew audiences, along with, I suppose, the promise of a twisty mystery. Well, “Now You See Me” does have a twisty mystery, but it’s a completely ridiculous one that requires more suspension of disbelief than many will be capable of providing. As the film also wastes its cast, stranding them with unfunny quips and contrived red-herring behaviors that beggar belief, and fundamentally betrays its own premise by half-heartedly introducing an element of mysticism into an allegedly grounded story, “Now You See Me” ends up being quite memorably terrible. Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher and Dave Franco star as four disparate illusionists brought together by a mysterious benefactor who bequeaths detailed instructions on constructing a new magic show. A year later, the four seemingly rob a Paris bank from Las Vegas. This alleged crime is investigated by a bumbling FBI agent (Mark Ruffalo) and his Interpol counterpart (Melanie Laurent), while a former magician (Morgan Freeman) now making money off debunking the work of others sees an opportunity in revealing the secrets of the four. As more shows are promised and more crimes are committed, the investigators seek a connection between the events while trying to stay ahead of the fiendishly clever magicians and their master plan. If you’re paying attention, you can guess who’s behind the whole thing pretty early; that is, if you care, as the film throws one absurd possibility after another at us with unexciting action scenes one after another and poor computer-generated effects subbing in for blatantly impossible illusions. Frankly, “Now You See Me” just doesn’t earn its hokum, making it an extremely frustrating movie indeed. $29.95 DVD, $39.99 Blu-ray.

“THE LORDS OF SALEM”

Rob Zombie returns to original horror filmmaking of his own devising after, by most accounts, an unsuccessful foray into rebooting the “Halloween” franchise. “The Lords of Salem” isn’t quite a triumphant return, but with Zombie seemingly drawing inspiration from directors like Roman Polanski, Ken Russell and Stanley Kubrick in this intermittently effective psychological horror story, there’s a lot to like about it before it collapses in its own excess in an unsuccessful psychedelic freak-out of an ending. Sheri Moon Zombie (the director’s wife and frequent star) plays our protagonist, a disc jockey and recovering addict in Salem, Mass., who receives a mysterious record from a band called The Lords. After she plays their industrial metal-style song, strange things start happening: her apartment complex seems to have a ghostly new resident and she begins to have horrifying visions of, among other things, a coven of witches from Salem’s past. This is a premise ripe for psychological horror, and “The Lords of Salem” hits these heights frequently, particularly in scenes with our protagonist’s three downstairs neighbors, sisters played by scream queens Judy Geeson, Patricia Quinn and Dee Wallace. But this being a Rob Zombie film, he can’t help but pile on the grotesque; it’s not enough to have a haunting, stunted demon at the top of stairs in an opera house, for example, when the demon can shrilly scream and wiggle strange tentacles from its body. Zombie’s tendencies toward the overwrought spectacularly manifest in a climax that seems almost entirely metaphorical, or at least too strange to provide a satisfying conclusion to what’s come before, yet there’s enough good stuff in “The Lords of Salem” that horror fans may enjoy what they see. $26.98 DVD, $30.99 Blu-ray.

“THE ICEMAN”

Michael Shannon is a terrific actor who deserves many opportunities to lead his own films, as people who have seen acclaimed films like “Take Shelter” or tiny indies like “The Missing Person” can attest. And he acquits himself nicely in “The Iceman,” the true story of feared and prolific mob hitman Richard Kuklinski, who came to notoriety by freezing the bodies of his victims to prevent investigators from determining the time of death. Shannon’s performance is all focused intensity, barely sublimated rage and a callous disregard for life despite being a family man with two beloved daughters. It’s unnerving and beautifully contradictory at times. But the film that contains this performance is largely unworthy of it, all mob clichés and overbearing score that indicate the film may have bitten off more than it could chew, particularly near the ending as Shannon hardly has room to breathe and things unravel quickly and unsatisfyingly. “The Iceman” starts with Kuklinski’s inauspicious beginnings as he is recruited due to his steely demeanor by crime boss Roy Demeo (Ray Liotta, doing his thing). Asked to prove his mettle, Kuklinski becomes a successful hitman, though a mishap soon kicks him back to square one and puts him on the outs with Demeo. Soon, Kuklinski heads into private business with a fellow assassin (Chris Evans), and the strain of his violent profession soon wears on his relationship with his wife (Winona Ryder) and daughters. The true story ends anticlimactically, and so too does this film; what began as well-drawn tension in the beginning unravels as the viewer realizes about halfway through that the film has already said all it intends to about its fascinating subject. Only Shannon’s magnetism keeps one invested, which is considerable, but not quite enough. $28.99 DVD, $29.99 Blu-ray.

“STORIES WE TELL”

Sarah Polley, an Oscar-nominated actress, writer and director, was born in 1979, the result of a pregnancy late in life, to parents Michael and Diane Polley of Toronto. Her mother died suddenly of cancer in her childhood, and she grew up with her father. Now, we all have our stories like that and we all have certain narratives and prisms through which we see our lives. Who our parents were, who our friends are, where we come from — these things define who we are in our everyday. Then, when one of us dies, it’s left to those who were closest to us to continue our narratives, piecing them together from possibly divergent memories and different perspectives. With her brilliant film, Polley does just that to paint a clear picture of her family, specifically her mother. Some of the stories and revelations here will astound you. Coming from fiction film and having refined her storytelling technique, part of the brilliance of “Stories We Tell” is the way things are revealed, piecemeal and point by point through a mixture of interviews and archival footage. Yet so many of the stories contradict one another that by its end “Stories We Tell” is equal parts memoir and treatise on the very nature of finding the truth, and in its last moments, the film examines its own reason for existing, and Sarah Polley’s motivations for making it. It elevates “Stories We Tell” beyond confessional portrait of a single family into a deconstruction of universal themes of what we remember about people and how we select what to share. It’s an extraordinary film and I recommend seeing it with as little foreknowledge of its turns as possible; we all tell stories to ourselves and others, but Sarah Polley is a born storyteller, and we’re fortunate to have the privilege that she shared this one with us in such a remarkable fashion.